It struck me the other day as I was enjoying a traditional
Kenyan meal with our host family (Pastor Geoffrey, his wife Florence, their
daughters Winnie and Grace, their sons Philip and Joshua, and several high
school graduates Kinyu and Emma) just how privileged we are even on a limited World Race budget of
$1.25/meal. The average Kenyan lives on
less than $2/day. When we worked with
the students, ages 3-7, of Growthways Academy, a ministry of Kitale Growth
Church, where Pastor Geoffrey serves, many of the childrens’ parents could not
even afford to pack a snack for their children.
Most days they are served a helping of porridge for lunch cooked over an
open fire pit in a shed of a kitchen.
For lunch, we go back to our host home where a meal is hot and prepared
for us by Kinyu, a chef at heart. In
this way Pastor Geoffrey has graciously created employment for Kinyu to support him and take him under his wing. Kinyu is an eager student, with a heart of
humility, devotion, and worship, and a disciple under Pastor Geoffrey.
As we walk down the streets of small town, Kitale, Kenya, we
are surrounded by street children, many of them orphaned or abandoned, with
outstretched hands, saying “muzungu, shilling” meaning “white person,
money.” Now, while I am not a “white
person” per se, to these Kenyan children, I am just one of those wealthy and
privileged white people, who visit Kenya for a vacation. While it would be easy to give a few Kenyan
shillings and feel good about doing a good deed today, I know this is not
enough. It is not fair. So, several questions beg to be asked:
- When my heart breaks for those in need, what
should my response be? - How do I fight for justice with my hands, feet,
and voice without growing complacent as a wallet? - How do I draw out the dignity and value of those
in need while providing practical, real-time solutions to tangible needs?
While “charity” has a negative connotation in our
contemporary world, it’s origins stem from living out the Biblical command to
“love your neighbor as yourself” Leviticus 19:18. According to Ancient Hebrew teachings there
are four levels of charity. The highest
being providing a job to someone in need without his knowledge that you
provided it. Followed by providing a job
for someone in need that he knows you provided.
Then, giving anonymously to meet an immediate need. The lowest level of charity is giving a gift
to someone in need with his full knowledge that you are the donor. While I currently have no means of providing
employment for anyone, the heart of this thought is to provide those in need
not with a handout but with a relationship and treat them with dignity and
value, to see and expose their gifting and their worth. Robert Lupton writes in his book Compassion,
Justice, and the Christian Life, “perhaps the deepest poverty of all is to
have nothing of value to offer in exchange.”
Yet, when we sit down and have conversations and build relationships
with those in need we are speaking volumes, saying, “You are worthwhile. You have something unique to offer. You are loved.” Just as Christ, has spoken these things over
us, we too are called to speak these things into the least of these.
